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Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Intent vs. Impact




As a black man watching events unfold day by day, and thinking of similar events year after year, generation after generation. I can't express how hard it is for me to hear people say it is only 1% of police. Or don't rush to judgment. 

If you know me, you know my father was a military policeman, and I have had great friends in my life that were also officers. I have great respect for the men and women that have dedicated their lives to serving and protecting. This is not an indictment on them. And I know this sound a lot like when a white person talks about race and begins by saying I have lots of black friends. So bare with me.

I had to learn about the history of injustice in our country from my parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. Their stories were first-hand accounts. Then I add this to my encounters. I was in a band with a buddy of mine and we were invited to one of our churches in another state to do a concert. After the concert, we went to the pastor's house for dinner. We were all just sitting around in their living room, and their very young daughter says out of nowhere, "We don't like black people." Someone from our church said, "What did you say?!" and the parents quickly took the young girl into another room and nothing was mentioned. Then we sat down for dinner and the grandmother said, "Ya'll sing pretty good for some colored boys!" Could things have been more awkward during dinner? I didn't laugh at the little girl, but I laughed at the grandmother. Because my grandmother used the term colored as well.

In school, it was often too uncomfortable for teachers to dive into our ugly history unless the class was extremely diverse. That was rare in my case until I went to school in Germany on a military base. There we openly discussed the historical injustice toward Native Americans, Italian and Irish Immigrants, African Slaves, Women, Civil Rights, Japanese internment camps, and modern-day immigration under Dr. Heffernan.

I'm not sharing these stories to drum up negative emotions or sow hatred. By sharing these stories, my stories, I can lower the degrees of separation for my friends, who until recently thought these things only happened to other blacks, not the ones they knew. This has led to the myth that as a culture we have moved beyond racism and anyone claiming it is simply living in the past. I'm not looking for an apology. And as a pastor, I know if I am to love my enemy and keep no record of wrongs. 

Forgiveness, however, requires a turning away from the transgression and includes a change in behaviors. Anything less is an empty gesture. A continuation of the transgression after asking for forgiveness is abuse. And a continuation of the abuse makes it pathological. 

Here is where I struggle. I understand I can't judge a book by its cover. But I can by the story it tells. I'm not asking for vengeance or revenge. Just what anyone would ask for if we were not talking about police. If we could keep the conversation on right and wrong, good and evil instead of where we are being asked to take this conversation daily.

If we were talking about a babysitting agency, that continued to have tragic deaths at the hands of their caregivers, we would be demanding the agency be investigated from the top down and bottom up. We would question their training, funding, background checks, the tools they used to recruit, the groups of people they targeted to recruit from, their affiliated agencies, and maybe even start by reviewing their public social media profiles. We would demand best practices and protocols to be put into place and structures of reporting and accountability closely monitored. There would be a zero-tolerance before that caregiver was allowed to serve and protect another human being. We would never tell the grieving family, "it sounds like you got a bad babysitter. "

Life lessons exist in the delicate balance between intent vs. impact.

When someone tells me:
This is only 1% of police. 
Don't rush to judgment.
These are a few bad apples
This is an isolated event. 
This doesn't happen as often as you think.  
This happens to all minority groups, you are not being singled out.
Relax and trust the system. 
Oh......... and by the way, forget what happened 200 years ago, we're not talking about that, we are talking about now. 

It feels as if I am are being asked to ignore intent and accept impact.
It feels as if you are asking me to carry the burden after being the victim.

My ears hear what you are saying, and even if I agree in part or whole, my heart hears you saying:

I don't believe you.
I don't stand with you on this.
The pain you are experiencing is your overreaction 
You are taking it personally. 
You have no reason to be this angry.

It is tough being asked to forgive when I don't see a turning away from the transgressions and a changing of behavior. But as a pastor, I push through to forgive. 

What hurts the most, is when your brothers and sisters in Christ are asking you to be more like Jesus while they are acting like Pontius Pilate and washing their hands of it and saying "Nothing To See Here"

Nothing to see but my grandfather Willie B. Lamb, working as a butler for white families in Texas. This is my story and I'm proud of my family.

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